Page 30 of Promise Me Sunshine

“Are you married?”

He blinks at me. “What?”

“Kids?”

“Lenny, get in here and sit down.”

I eye him up but follow directions, perching on the edge of his couch. And I mean the edge. I’ve got barely an eighth of a buttcheek on the cushion. My thighs are burning. “Well?”

He strides out of the room and comes back with a tiny white briefcase.

“No wife, no kids. Sit back.” He’s kneeling in front of me, glaring at my legs and opening the briefcase. I peer down into it. It’s a mini pharmacy in there. Bandages, gauze, tubes of ointment, swabs, pills, tong thingies, you name it. He’s a Florence Nightingale wannabe.

He moves the hole in my pants from one side to the other, trying to get to the scrape. Finally, with a sound of frustration in the back of his throat, he just reaches for my ankle and rolls my pants up, over my knee. I grimace down at my long-unshaven shins. “Sorry. Wasn’t expecting company.”

“Huh?”

I gesture to the leg hair.

He rolls his eyes. “Oh. Yeah. How dare you have leg hair.”

I laugh for the shortest of seconds, but then he’s disinfecting my knee and my time is better spent trying not to kick him right in the face for the searing pain he’s inflictingon me. I’m wincing, sucking in breath, sliding down off the couch, and he’s just rolling his eyes, the heartless lout. “Bear it if you can,” he says tonelessly.

I’m in a puddle on the floor, but it doesn’t seem to hinder his process. In less than a minute he’s got me properly bandaged and my pant leg pulled back down. “Sorry about the pants. I don’t think there’s anything I can do about the rip.”

“That’s okay. I’ll patch them later. Thanks for the bandage.”

I lift two hands up to Miles, who is already standing. He grips me firmly andbangI’m on my feet. Just like that.

We’re standing a foot apart and he closes a few inches of the distance, squinting into my face. Again I notice the fan of smile lines outside each of his eyes. They’re not in service now, however. He’s appraising me and frowning. “Did you sleep atalllast night?”

I shoot him a little pouty grimace. “I slept like a baby. Twelve straight hours. They want me to star in a mattress commercial.”

“Don’t argue. It’s obvious.”

“Because I look so awful?”

“I mean, sorry to offend your vanity, but it’s an objective fact.”

This time I use my hands to squinch my face into a grotesque shape and waggle my tongue at him.

“Were you a good sleeper before Lou died?”

Hearing him say her name so easily is a guttural jolt. My hands drop to my sides.

“Yes.”

“So why didn’t you call me?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you couldn’t sleep, or needed to talk, you should have called me. I shouldn’t be finding out that you had a sleeplessnight because I happen to run into you when you drag your rotting carcass to work.”

“What?” The rotting carcass comment is such a body slam I might not survive it. “Come on. I can’t actually call you in the middle of the night!”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the middle of the night!”

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